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Using PayPal for OJS and OCS Payments

The latest versions of OJS and OCS support the use of the PayPal online payment system (http://www.paypal.com) for secure online financial transactions. In OJS, this can be used to collect subscription fees, pay-per-view fees, membership fees, author submission fees, fast-track peer review fees, and donations. In OCS, this can also be used to collect registration fees.

This document will outline the basic steps in getting this up and running. You should, however, review the PayPal documentation to ensure that you have setup your PayPal profile to meet your specific requirements.

A Paypal Sandbox Account

(This section was recently inserted by an end user struggling with these instructions.)

The first advice is to experiment not with a real paypal account, but with the paypal sandbox feature. The paypal sandbox is a paypal website without real money. Switch to the real paypal website only after the sandbox paypal interaction is working well. for the original instructions, feel free to go on to the next section, instead. This section describes the sandbox-related process.

Create a New Account. This account has nothing to do with your real paypal account. It is also not even the test account that you will be using to test Paypal with your site. Instead, it is a paypal sandbox account that allows you in turn to create pretend-paypal accounts. It is these pretend-paypal accounts that you will use to test paypal interaction with your journal..

In the sandbox signup, you should probably still use your real information. It is a real account, used to develop the paypal interaction. Describe your business, presumably your journal. On the next page, give your Business Owner Contact Information.

After you log into this brand-new sandbox account, you can begin to create test accounts. You should probably create one seller pretend-paypal account for your journal, and a few pretend-paypal accounts for different buyers (journal subscribers, donors, etc). you can also give these accounts bank balances, login accounts, etc

After you created each test paypal account, you can enter the sandbox pretend-paypal test site, using the new paypal-pseudo account. this is done through a nice menu choice that makes this obvious. you can also verify your pretend-paypal accounts here. (If the site asks for verification (which the real paypal does by depositing two small transactions into your account), you can provide any dollar amount you wish.) For your pretend-paypal seller (i.e., journal account), you want to turn on Instant Payment Notification (IPN). On the profile page, under Seller Preferences, you will find the IPN entry. the notification URL that it asks for is https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr. [I don't really understand why you would tell paypal to IPN to itself, but this works.]

now skip to "Configuring OJS/OCS below." watch out: if you do not have the PHP curl library installed (not just curl itself), it is not just that the paypal interaction will not work, even the payment buttons will not appear on your website.

Your Real PayPal Account

Hit the Go button. If you already have a PayPal account, login now. If not, select your country:

Fill in the resulting form:

Fill in the forms and save. Next, create your business account:

Confirm your registration using your email account:

Once you`ve confirmed your account, go to your Account Overview:

Using the Unverified link, go ahead and verify your account.

Next, from your Account Overview, choose the Edit Profile link:

On the Profile page, choose Instant Payment Notification Preferences:

Use the Edit button to turn on Instant Payment Notification (IPN):

Check the box and add the URL below (you will also find this URL when you setup your payment methods in OJS or OCS):

Viewing Payments As Journal Manager

In terms of completed payments, you should be able to access these via the 'Records' tab from the Fee Payment Options screen as a JM. Likewise, you'll find options for submission and peer review payments under the main 'Options' page. With these enabled, you'll be able to see if/when they were paid for each submisssion.

This will create a DONATION link in the sidebar if you have installed the PHP libcurl library, and if you have not changed the default in your OJS Home > User > Journal Management > Journal Setup [then choose "5. The Look" and check that 5.6 has the 'Donation Block' still in the right sidebar]:

When readers select the DONATION link, they will be taken to the PayPal Fee Payment page:

After clicking Continue, the reader will be taken directly to PayPal, where they can select their donation amount (e.g., $10.00) and pay using a credit card or with their own PayPal account:

If they choose to use a credit card, they will need to fill in the resulting form:

Once the payment is complete, they will return to the journal or conference. The payment will appear in your PayPal Account Overview:

If you have any questions about using OJS or OCS with PayPal, please let us know at pkp-support@sfu.ca

Configuring OJS/OCS

Now that you have setup your PayPal account, you will need to activate your payment methods in OJS or OCS. To do so, login as the Journal Manager or the Conference Manager, and select Payments. Under General Options, choose your currency: